Regulatory compliance has become an increasingly costly burden. For example, SIFMA has estimated that the U.S. securities industry in 2004 spent $23.2 billion on compliance-related activities(1). In addition, regulatory mandates have become more intrusive in their application to how business is conducted...

At the heart of the record retention challenge is the difficult question as to what types of documents to maintain for compliance purposes and how long to maintain them. In certain cases, applicable laws and regulations specify the types of documents to retain and the length of time to retain them. For...